Almost 21 years ago, the long thriving artist in me desperately wanted to delve into some unique field of painting so as to create a niche for myself. So apart from my Abstract oils-on-canvas and a bit of fabric painting, I stumbled upon the interesting field of silk painting. The more I learnt and the more I practiced, the more I kept drowning in this technique. Finally I reached a level where my hand painted silk scarves were coming out beautifully, what with my innovative designs and themes.
At this point, on exploring possibilities of a marketing outlet for these products, I contacted some design houses and finally one did love my samples and promised me an order of a hundred scarves, just as soon as their boss gave the approval. I was more than elated, beautiful designs and colourful dreams already floating in my mind’s eye. And for this I was asked to leave all my samples with them for some days. Some 15 days later, having faced their polite postponement of returning my samples, forget the order, I had to somehow get after them to atleast give me my sample scarves back.
That dream order of a hundred scarves never came, but this incident churned a lot of unanswered questions in my intellect and in the process of searching for answers for my failure to get the order, I accidentally stumbled into the innovative and the then nascent field of Intellectual Property (IP). Consequently, I became an IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) professional, fighting for the IP rights of artisans & craftspersons.
It is now more than 17 years of my work in the field of IPRs, being a pioneer in my unique field in India. I guess I should thank the failure to get that order for my success in my “stumbled upon” field.
Manisha Gupta, Artist & IPR Professional, Screenwriter & Filmmaker, Happiness Expert, New Delhi, INDIA.